H808 – Understanding eportfolio software (CA 3.1 part 3)

October 15, 2010

Back again 😉 with my Mahara vs. Google apps eportfolio comparison. Below I attached the table with my findings.

Here a brief summary of my findings and how they compare with my peers in my tutor group. I choose Mahara because I heard of it and I opened an account recently so it seems natural to choose it, I do not really like ‘My Stuff ‘ though I cannot really explain why but probably its the ‘look & feel’ that does not appeal me, and another reason is the limited access to my stuff when I finish my studies with the OU. That was one reason why I moved my to this blog account, because it guarantees ‘lifelong’ access and I am in control, not an institution. From the two remaining Google apps attracted me most, though I see that a lot of my peers choose Pebble Pad and I think it would be worth exploring it myself, if I just had more time.

I agree with one peer who compared Pebble Pad and Mahara that it requires some technical knowledge to integrate it into the own local host, or the school system or Moodle. However, I simply use the online version which requires no technical knowledge at all and again I do not have the problem how I can transfer data from a school/university system in my domain. I do not know if the online version offers fewer features, so probably someone with more experience might comment on that point. Mahara is open source based on community knowledge contrary to Google who has the power from a worldwide operating company. My peer describes the communication features as Facebook-style messaging and he likes the readily customisable views. I haven’t really used the Mahara ‘Facebook’, but I really appreciated the customisable views, who works like a modular construction system where I can easily drag & drop those artefacts that I wish to include and I can edit access.

The MOSEP Study that another student found is really interesting and shows that Pebble Pad seems to have more functionality available as Mahara, unfortunately Google apps is not represented, probably because it’s ‘only’ a eportfolio system.

Interestingly only one other student choose to have a look at Google apps and it was new to me that she said that the OU might change to Google. Well, the email is already Gmail, so it could be possible. I would really love to learn more about Google apps.